Tag: Michael Page

English welterweight Michael “Venom” Page (7-0) has become one of the most consistently thrilling MMA fighters in the world. This is the dude who won his pro MMA debut via tornado kick, in the world’s first-ever “just gonna stand here for a while” knockout (see above). He won his Bellator debut in just 10 seconds. In his second Bellator fight, he did this to Ricky Rainey. His decision win last month over Strikeforce/UFC veteran Nah-Shon Burrell marked the first time that one of Page’s fights made it out of the first round.

No, we’ve never heard of the guy either, and his nickname deserves itsown post. (“My 3rd-grade teacher gave me that name, and it just stuck” — made-up quote from Curtis Millender.) Apparently, he’s a 7-0 fighter from San Berdoo, with all of his fights taking place in the OC Fight Club promotion. He’s a coach at the UFC Gym in Fullerton, and comes from a wrestling background. He only has two stoppage wins to his name, including a 48-second doctor’s stoppage TKO of TUF 16 castmember James Chaney last month.

Okay, maybe it’s not fair to write this dude off as dead meat before we’ve even seen him. Watch the promo video below, and you’ll see Millender throw some flashy attacks that we might describe as “Page-esque in their execution, Joe.” Plus, at the 0:36 mark, he makes his opponent do the stankiest stanky-leg we have ever seen in sanctioned competition. So that’s pretty cool.

Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney didn’t give out the gate numbers at the post-fight presser, even when asked (which probably means they were bad). And it’s still too early to know how Bellator 120 performed at the box office. So, financially, Bellator’s first PPV can’t definitively be called a success or a failure.

Regarding entertainment value, however, Bellator 120 was a success. There were some pacing issues, yes, but overall the card delivered.

In the first fight, Michael Page did his best Anderson Silva impression, knocking out Ricky Rainey (who’s name was hilariously spelled wrong at the post-fight presser) after taunting him mercilessly. In the next bout, former Bellator heavyweight champ Alexander Volkov scored an upset submission win over Blagoi Ivanov.

Then came Tito Ortiz vs. Alexander Shlemenko. Ortiz was the laughing stock of this card, without a doubt. He was a relic from a bygone era who hadn’t won a fight in three years. His ridiculous pre-fight promos (he promised to make Shlemenko “literally shit himself”) only made him look worse. Shlemenko, on the other hand, was Bellator’s middleweight champ and a stern Russian killer. He’d have no problem with Ortiz despite the considerable size difference, or so the world thought. But Ortiz won the fight. He submitted Shlemenko with an arm-triangle choke in the very first round. Then he gave the worst post-fight interview of all time; he pretended to be Hulk Hogan.

As crazy as Ortiz-Shlemenko was, it wasn’t the emotional high point of the PPV, nor was Michael Chandler vs. Will Brooks. Chandler-Brooks was not a particularly anticipated match. In fact, the entire Bellator PPV was centered around the rubber match between Chandler and Eddie Alvarez. When Alvarez withdrew due to a concussion, many thought it meant death for Bellator 120. Will Brooks was thrown in against Chandler, but it was a squash match—or at least that’s what conventional wisdom held. But Brooks upended fans and pundits, beating Chandler via split decision. He was made of sterner stuff than we all gave him credit for.

Then we had the main event, Rampage Jackson vs. King Mo. The fight itself was banal. Mo dominated Rampage with wrestling while Rampage landed a couple of decent shots throughout the fight. It seemed like a pretty easy decision win for King Mo, but the judges didn’t see it that way; they awarded Rampage with a unanimous decision. What happened after the fight was the real draw though. King Mo and Rampage started jaw-jacking. During the Spike TV portion of the broadcast, King Mo accused Bjorn Rebney of “dick riding” Rampage. He didn’t hold in such feelings in his post-fight speech, nor did he silence himself at the post-fight presser. Him and Rampage yelled at each other while the presser stream intermittently died possibly due to the sheer volume of viewers.

In this liveblog of Bellator’s first-ever PPV, CagePotato social media kosmonaut and weekend editor Matt Saccaro will be giving you the results for the PPV portion of the fight card, in case you’re too cheap to buy it or don’t have access to it for some reason. He’ll also be posting quick results from the rest of the event, as well as his typical analysis of commercials on the Spike TV portion of the broadcast.

The PPV begins at 10:00 pm EST. The Spike TV preliminaries start at 8:00 pm EST. We’ll start posting results after the jump shortly thereafter. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest.

All nine of the fights for Bellator 120 — four Spike preliminaries, five main card contests — have been ranked solely by my interest in watching them. If you disagree, feel free to write some terrible things about me in the comments section. I look forward to ignoring them.

I don’t think either fighter is even capable of a boring match, much less a boring match against each other. I could type paragraph after paragraph on how their first two encounters resulted in two of the greatest fights in our sport’s history, and how…oh why am I even trying to pretend that I’m not going to insert an Al Bundy GIF and move along to the next fight:

Despite losing some of its star power due toinjuries, last night’s Bellator 93 event in Lewiston, Maine, turned out to be a mostly-satisfying affair, with eight of the ten scheduled matches ending within the first-round, and three ending within the first 20 seconds. But two unfortunate moments cast a shadow on the event.

First off, Michael Page‘s hotly-anticipated Bellator debut ended with a 10-second KO victory over Ryan Sanders, as the flashy British striker caught Sanders with a straight right as his victim was charging in…or so it seemed. Upon closer inspection, there was something a little fishy about the stoppage. Watch the replays in the video above, and you’ll see that Page either barely touched Sanders, or didn’t touch him at all. At any rate, the strike didn’t seem to justify the reaction of Sanders, who immediately flopped to the mat, clutching his head in agony. He was back on his feet moments later, looking somewhat disappointed. We’re not going to accuse Bellator of some vast conspiracy; it’s more likely that Sanders simply didn’t want to be there. And unfortunately, he may have robbed us of the opportunity to see Page produce another classic no-walk-off knockout.

Speaking of let-downs, the guaranteed barnburner between Marcus Davis vs. Waachiim Spiritwolf ended in a no-contest in the first round, after Davis nailed Spiritwolf with a knee to the groin; Spiritwolf couldn’t continue after the foul. (Sound familiar?) Though the Lewiston crowd chanted “Bullshit!” and booed Spiritwolf in an apparent indictment of his bitchassness, there was nothing fake about that low-blow. Check out the GIF below, via BloodyElbow…

Since switching to the “Thursday Night Fights” format, Bellator has been consistently cranking out high quality fight cards that often compensate for their lack of name value with exciting finishes and entertaining brawls to boot. Then again, with all of their biggest starts consistently underperforming, Bellator’s cards often live and die by the performances of their lesser known fighters. Tonight’s Bellator 93 card is no different, featuring a slew of relative unknowns and up-and-comers that are all but guaranteed to deliver in terms of entertainment. Here’s why you should be watching when they do…

1. Michael. F’in. Page.

Despite his short time in the sport, Michael “Venom” Page might just be the most hyped fighter currently outside of the UFC. At just 3-0, the British phenom has already drawn comparisons to Jimi Manuwa and even Anderson Silva for his flashy yet devastating style of striking. Just check out the above video of Page clowning Ben Dishman in his professional debut (fight starts at the 3 minute mark) and tell us that the sky isn’t the limit for this kid. On the heels of a doctor stoppage TKO victory at Super Fight League 7, Page will be taking on relative unknown Ryan Sanders, who has dropped three of his past four fights. Yeah, this is not going to end well for him. But it probably will for fans of horrifying knockouts.

It doesn’t really matter how we lead into this knockout video, which features Anderson Silva Jr. a.k.a Michael Page at his highlighty best during a mixed rules bout at last weekend’s UCMMA 29 card. These words are ultimately meaningless; they might as well be gobbledygook. Because this knockout, though outstanding in its own right, barely stands a chance of distracting you from the bombshell that was dropped this afternoon. To sum things up using the words of the people who occupy my Twitter feed: No UFC 151. No Christmas. God is dead. Jon Jones is an scaredy-cat, punk-bitch, fake champ. Greg Jackson is a yoda-looking, wet blanket, douchenozzle. Etc, etc…

We have no clue where this video came from, or what the true purpose of it is, but we’d be lying if we said that Piterland doesn’t look like the bees knees, and apparently former PRIDE Heavyweight champion Fedor Emelianenko and his daughter Masha agree. We are still waiting to hear who “The Last Emperor’s” next opponent will be, but rumors have ranged everywhere from Bobby Lashley in a MMA match to Brock Lesnar in a pro wrestling bout, so who the hell knows? What we do know is that the next man to fight Fedor might want to reconsider if he values his health whatsoever. Poor Ishii.

What’s that you say? You want to see a MMA fighter humiliate and dance around his opponent ala Silva/Leites/Maia/anyone before brutally kicking them in the face? Well we’ve got just the video awaiting your viewership after the jump.